ABSTRACT
Preparing foreign-born employees may be more complex than one would at first imagine. There are interactions between people in the workplace that may be difficult for the new immigrant to understand. The goals of the organization that employs the individual might be different from those in the homeland. Tools for looking at the difference between mastery on a job and the actual performance are described. The Mastery minus Actual performance equal Discrepancy (M-A=D) construct is an easily remembered formula for examining this difference. An Action Position Description, APD, provides details about the job. It delineates the parts of the job, the behaviours required to carry out the job successfully, and the satisfactory performance standard. The very act of preparing an APD can improve the performance of current employees. Often, this is because the urgency of day-to-day activity in the workplace overcomes the importance of keeping up with changes that occur.
